Thank you so much to all of you who organized and attended Briar’s Celebration of Life at Nelson’s Lakeside Park on July 14.
The loving appreciations for Briar you expressed at the open mic were beautiful and heartbreaking. We were enormously moved by the grief and love experienced by so many whose lives he touched.
Over 300 people came. Briar would have been absolutely bowled over to see what a huge impact he made on his community, but we saw his optimism, humour, intelligence, dogged determination to succeed, and idiosyncratic style sense. He was so committed to improving at basketball that he often woke at 5:30 to catch the early bus so he could practise for an hour before school.
He lived by his own code: don’t just talk about it, do it. At 16 he was really coming into his own, excelling at sports and academics and charging ahead with plans and excitement.
He treasured his trip to Japan last year and looked forward to living there. We were so pleased to watch Briar begin to emerge as a man. It is incomprehensible that we’ll never see him again. Briar would be proud to know that we’re planning a basketball bursary and a tournament in his name.
Please share with us photos and videos you took at Briar’s Celebration of Life and your anecdotes about him at briarnovitski.ca.
There’s a bittersweet irony when we celebrate someone’s life when they’re no longer here to appreciate how much they meant to us.
Let's change that. Make sure your parents, your children, your friends know how much you love them every day.
Take a leaf from Briar’s book and just do it.
In love and grief,
Paul Novitski, Tanya Wright, and Callum Winlaw
